One must exercise extreme caution while singing and dancing to this song and showering at the same time!
That is all!
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First Winter in North Dakota…
Posted on January 22, 2010 by pamsteinke
Is turning out to be quite interesting!
We are all bundled in for the storm that was due to hit today. Today we were supposed to get 3-4 inches of snow with sustained winds in the 30+ mph with gusts up to 60+ mph.
Saturday is supposed to be more of the same, but the winds shouldn’t be as strong. Sunday the forecast is for less snow but more/stronger winds.
This morning started out with ice falling from the sky rather than snow. The snow didn’t start until about 2pm. I’ve never been in an ice storm. The closest thing I’ve seen is the movie, “Ice Storm”. While most of the ice we have “hanging” off stuff (not so much hanging as collecting like some cubic stalagmite that juts out parallel to the ground on the East side of everything…yeah, I know, pics would be helpful), came from that weird heavy fog that’s been constantly present over the preceding 3 days of sub-freezing temps. Today’s short ice storm added to what was already built up. Because of the ice build up and the threat of storm, David got let out of school at 1pm today…he was so heartbroken…NOT!
We, within the city of Mott, have been fortunate. In the last 3-4 days, our power has flickered off then usually back on within a minute about a dozen times. A lot of friends and family outside the city limits have not been so lucky.
Kenny and Michele live outside of town and have their electricity provided by a different company than those of us in town. They have been without power for 3 days. The town where Brian works is without water because the pump station that brings in water from Dickinson is on a third power company and they have been without power for over 24 hours…and thus without water for over 24 hours. MAN it would SUCK to be both without power AND water!
I guess all I can do is cross my fingers and prepare for the worst…30 gallons of fresh water is in the house, the fridge and freezer are stocked and if the power goes out, that stuff can go outside and remain frozen, and there is a gas barbeque outside in a pinch and lots of thermal blankets inside. I don’t think it will come to that, but it helps to know that we would be OK…I’m still thinking we ought to save up for a generator, just in case.
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Dear Pat Robertson,
Posted on January 18, 2010 by pamsteinke
Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan
*From the Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Fatality Crash
Posted on January 14, 2010 by pamsteinke
What a scary phrase that is…especially when one of your loved ones was involved!
Brother-in-Law, Kenny, was involved in said accident at around midnight last night. He’s still in the hospital in Fargo, but the docs are letting him go home tomorrow.
Here is the story…courtesy of WDAY 6 News.
Buffalo, ND (WDAY-TV) – A Bismarck woman died in a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 94 near Buffalo, North Dakota overnight that injured 7 people.
The Highway Patrol says a 59-year-old woman was driving a black Dodge pickup in the westbound lanes when she lost control, rolled through the median, and landed on a Grand Prix in the eastbound lane. An 81-year-old woman riding in the truck died in the crash.
The Grand Prix was driven by 22-year-old Eric Bahr from Fargo. 23-year-old Sara Daede, also from Fargo was a passenger, both were injured.
A Chevy Cobalt driven by 21-year-old Ashley Collins from Jamestown then hit the Grand Prix and went into the median. Collins was hurt, but a 2-year-old boy in the car was not.
The next car involved in the crash, a Ford Taurus driven by 41-year-old Billie Rauser from Walhalla, hit debris and the Grand Prix before skidding out of control and hitting a guardrail on the interstate. Rauser was injured in the crash.
Then, a semi hauling a double trailer, driven by 45-year-old Kenneth McCoy from Mott, t-boned the black pickup truck, pushing it into the Grand Prix. McCoy was also hurt in.
The semi then slid into a guard rail and bridge column supporting an overpass and one of the trailers flipped on its side.
All of the injured were taken by ambulance to hospitals in Fargo. Troopers with the Highway Patrol say one person does have serious injuries.
Lt. Brian Nieland says roads were frosted and slick at the time of the crash and that may have played a part.
A portion of the interstate was shut down because of the accident.
Kenny works for a trucking company. In the past he did freight deliveries during the day, but, this week he started his “new job” which was delivering freight filled trailers to Fargo for dispatching and returning with the freight filled trailers for local delivery during the overnight hours. He had started these new responsibilities on Monday night at 7pm…4 hour drive to Fargo, unload the freight, reload with freight intended for the areas his home office covers, and drive the 4 hours back to Richardton…making it a 12 hour workday for him.
Poor Kenny is hurting pretty bad especially on the left side where he hit the bridge support! He’s been through every medical test imaginable today, thankfully the only significant damage is to his hand. His left hand has a lot of glass damage and requires surgery to repair tendons, nerves, etc. but it’s already infected so that has to clear up first. The hand specialist says Kenny will be out for 8 weeks after surgery, plus however long it takes for the infection to clear up.
I’m just thankful he is OK for the most part. It’s been a scary day…I can’t imagine his poor wife getting a call at 2am saying “Hello, this is XYZ Hospital in Fargo and we have your husband here…”, every person’s worst nightmare. Scary!!!
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I’m a “Knifty Knitter”
Posted on January 13, 2010 by pamsteinke
I couldn’t sleep one night so rather than listen to Brian snore, I got up and watched some telly. Rather, I flipped channels on the telly! I flipped past an infomercial about the Knifty Knitter by ProvoCraft and backed up to watch some of it. I’ve always wanted to learn how to knit but try as I might I couldn’t get the hang of it. Well, the Knifty Knitter was the answer to my prayers…LOL!
Apparently this is rather an old design. Otherwise known as a loom, these have been around for years. While Provo’s are made of plastic, most of the ones I researched were made of wood and the idea had been around for a century or more.
This is a style of knitting even I could get my pea-brain around.
When I was at Wally World last, I hit the yarn aisle to see if, perchance, they carried and Knifty Knitter, and behold…there they were! Most places, online, were sold out of them, but not Wally World. I picked up the set of round ones (see above), and another set that are narrow ovals that are used for scarves, afghans, and a bunch of other stuff.
With some further research I was able to find all kinds of patterns for the looms as well as youtube videos to demonstrate additional stitches, etc.
I messed around with the basics of the round ones to get the hang of it. Then I started, seriously, on my first project and finished it tonight. Behold my first knitted hat, cheerfully modeled by the one and only David. Brian suggested he would be stealing it, but we will just have to see about it.
Sorry the picture is so crappy, I only had the phone camera available.
I’m off to start my scarf and learn a new stitch.
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Funniest New TV Show
Posted on January 4, 2010 by pamsteinke
“Worst Cooks in America” on the Food Network has to be the funniest thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time. It’s another reality show, yeah I know, a reality show…but it was hysterical last night. All of us were around the TV, laughing until our sides ached last night.
The premise is that these 2 chefs are trying to find the 20 worst cooks in the country to try and turn them around and have the best one each team prepare a meal that will convince a food critic it was made by the aforementioned chef.
So last night they had about 30 contestants and asked them to prepare a “signature dish” for the chefs to taste…OH MY GAWD…one gal made a soup that consisted of 5 cans of vegetable dumped into a pot and heated…she called it…..wait for it….Vegetable Soup! Another gal created a combination of ground turkey and sweet potatoes and called it a meatloaf. But the funniest had to be the lady that made a Peanut Butter Encrusted Cod Filet…I thought I was going to die…I didn’t think anyone could be that completely clueless about cooking. If you get a chance, you should check it out…I don’t think you will be disappointed.
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Christmas 2009 winding down
Posted on December 25, 2009 by pamsteinke
It was an incredible Christmas, blizzard and all!
Brian and I hosted Christmas Eve last night. Kenny, Michele, Jake, and Michele’s Mom, Betty joined us, Rochell, Gigi, and Sonya. I’d thought it would be nice to have a couple of pots of soup on the stove as well as some freshly baked bread for dinner. I had also been amassing some homemade goodies to serve, such as my Mom’s version of Chex Mix, Oreo Bon-Bons, and Almond Roca.
We opened gifts and laughed all night long. That was the truly enjoyable part, that there was so much laughter. Gigi looked at me towards the end of the night and said it was the best Christmas Eve she’d ever had.
The wind was howling as our party came to an end last night…a blizzard in the forecast. When David woke everyone up for Christmas Morning at 9am, a blizzard was in effect.
We had more presents to open since Santa had stopped by. And since no one could get out of their driveway due to the blizzard we decided to postpone Christmas Dinner until Sunday when Danielle and Cameron return to Mott.
Our Christmas day was spent lazing by the TV, snuggled under blankets, or napping in bed, or playing new games Santa delivered, or reading new books received the night before. Plenty of leftovers were snacked on, pop cans opened, and dishes dirtied…and it couldn’t have been better if we had planned it.
We had a MARVELOUS first WHITE Christmas in Mott, ND…I’ll be looking forward to Christmas 2010.
Here is wishing everyone’s Christmas was marvelous!
Filed under: Family, Holidays, North Dakota | Leave a Comment »
At What Point Do You Give Up?
Posted on December 23, 2009 by pamsteinke
Have you ever had a relationship with someone where they continually let you down? Time passes, you think the person has changed, gotten better, and you give them the benefit of the doubt again. Things go well for a while, then they let you down yet again. At what point do you give up? When do you just decide they are a flake or selfish and quit getting your hopes up? I wish I knew because it sucks to get your heart broken again and again and again.
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Fog?!?!?!?
Posted on December 19, 2009 by pamsteinke
As usual, pardon the crappy cell phone picture. I was in my jammies, letting the dogs out to go do their business and the cell phone was right there.
SO…had the one of the WEIRDEST experiences of my life yesterday driving home from Bismarck. There was this incredibly HEAVY fog covering much of the roads I travel home. Having been born and raised in Southern California I am used to fog…in fact I really only associate fog with coastal states, like Cali. I can remember walking to school on really foggy mornings and getting to the point where we would have to cross Parthenia with the knowledge we could only see maybe 20 feet in either direction and the cars wouldn’t be likely to see us crossing in time to stop. We would stop, listen really hard for any kind of engine noise, then run across the two lane road as fast as we could.
Digressed again…So there was this really heavy fog coming home from Bismarck. Which I didn’t expect being in a land locked state. But the other thing that truly amazed me was that it was about 10 degrees. Now, in my layman’s mind, I assume that fog is water vapor. At 10 degrees, I would again assume that any water molecules in the fog would freeze and fall to the ground…which, by the way, was not happening. So I was really having a hard time figuring out what the hell was going on and how it was going on.
We got home, still fog everywhere…blankets of it. Some of the blankets were light like a thin white cotton bed sheet…others HEAVY like a big down comforter. This morning the fog is gone but now everything is encased in ice…kind of like the water molecules in the fog need a catalyst to do the freezing and falling out of the air I was expecting…but the catalyst was contact with something solid.
Very strange and something I am going to have to research…I’m not going to be able to let this conundrum go until I understand it. I will have to post my findings in case any readers are as curious about this phenomena as I am.
**OOPS** – Almost forgot. It was my darling brother-in-laws birthday yesterday. I had to get him some more Victoria’s Secret products to go with the undies I got him last year. LOL! Love ya Kenny…and Happy Birthday!!!
Filed under: North Dakota | 1 Comment »
“Belated” Happy 50th Birthday Porter
Posted on December 14, 2009 by pamsteinke
**I want it noted that Porter would not let me post this on his actual birthday! He MADE me wait until now to post!**
Happy 50th Birthday Porter. If you will remember, you tortured me during my 40th birthday telling me “40 is the new 60!!!”, you little shit! The least I could do is post all over the internet that you are 50, even though you are only 40!
I have to share a family story that relates to birthdays. My Dad had a bet with his sisters that he would NOT be married by his 30th birthday…I want to say they each bet him $100, but it may not have been that much, we are talking the 60s here. So the deal was, if Dad married before May 28th, 1966, he owed each of his three sisters $100…if he wasn’t married, each of his three sisters owed him a $100.
In 1966, my Dad was dating my Mom. On my Dad’s 30th birthday, my Mom asked my Dad what he wanted, he said, “You”. So plans were under way for the two of them to elope to Yuma, Arizona. Why Yuma? Well, they didn’t have a mandatory waiting period like CA did. At that time in CA, you had to wait two days from the time the marriage license was issued until you could get married. So Mom and Dad eloped and Dad was still able collect on the bet with his sisters…and trust me, if you knew my Dad, there wasn’t any way he was going to pay off on that bet. Had the folks gotten engaged before that date, Dad would have made Mom wait until after that date to get married!
So, with that story in mind…this morning, on my baby brother’s 40th birthday, he shared that story with his girlfriend, Taya…and asked her to marry him!
That was a call I was very excited to get this morning. I’m so happy Porter has been able to find someone to happily spend the rest of his life with. Taya is such a great lady and I can’t thank her enough for making Porter so happy. That, alone, makes her one of the most wonderful people in the whole world to me.
When Wendy died, I was so afraid Porter was going to wither and die too…that would have been the last thing Wendy would have wanted. I’m sure Wendy was watching this morning and cheering the happy couple on as much as the rest of us are.
Congratulations Porter and Taya…may you have many, many, wornderfully happy years together. I love you both!
Oh! And happy birthday little brother!
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